The Over Optimized Athlete
When Our Data Gives Us A Beat Down
My wife was chatting with one of our speedy friends about heart rate variability. The athlete is an Olympian and observed…
It sounds useful but it would be another thing for me to worry about.
I need to be measuring less, not more.
It was an insightful comment.
Data-Driven Performance
Interpreted properly, the data helps us:
Improve more quickly.
Make fewer mistakes.
Feel better.
But…
Do I need to measure this?
Do I need to pay attention to this?
Am I fooling myself about the accuracy of this metric?1
Dial Down The Noise
The first thing I do when I receive a new Garmin device is reduce its functionality, especially “Training Status.”
Garmin describes training status as:
Each training status is accompanied by a coaching message that explains why you received the status, and what you can do to either improve or maintain it. You can also learn more about what impacts your status, such as VO₂ Max, HRV status and acute training load. Training Status is an excellent guide for keeping training on the right track.
Sounds great.
Doesn’t work.
Inaccurate metric.
Don’t need to pay attention.
Don’t need to measure.
I’m picking on “training status” but there are many things in a similar category.
Sleep Tracking
Continuous Monitoring (of most anything)
Fitness Age
Turn. It. Off.
Every thought we have about something that doesn’t matter:
Crowds out something useful.
Is energy better spent elsewhere.
There Is A Cost To Everything
The Olympian (above) was recovering from injury.
The athlete knew they needed to give every bit of energy towards healing themselves.
Injured
Tired
Anxious
Peaking
Recovering
Desiring Consistent Improvement
Whatever your goal => Simplification is a constant process. It does not come easily.
A mantra to help.
Measuring doesn’t make me faster.
Work, followed by adaptation, makes me faster.
Simple Changes To Boost Energy
A few years ago, I wasn’t physically injured => I was mentally fried.
The questions were different:
Do I need to pay attention to this?
Am I fooling myself about the usefulness of this item?2
Across a year:
I nuked social media.3
Turned off all notifications.
Made sure nothing buzzed, flashed or notified me.
Started waking up without an alarm.
It worked OK.
What worked better was using endurance sport to reduce my total stress burden. I had an extended period focused on low-end aerobic fitness (documented here).
This combination had me feeling better, and younger.
This improvement happened at a level of activity, and intensity, lower than I expected (14 hours per week, virtually all Green Zone).
Remember what worked and why you started.
Stress, Recovery and The Competitive Amateur
As we move up the performance curve, we need to maintain stress balance.
One way to maintain balance is to pay attention to less.
Not-thinking can be a struggle => for me, for the data-driven coach, for the over-optimized athlete…
Return to the questions:
Do I need to measure this?
Do I need to pay attention to this?
Am I fooling myself about the accuracy of this metric?
In considering those questions, I’ve made changes:
No watch in the pool => relaxation and technical improvement yield more than endless split data. Benchmark sets are good enough.
No power on the gravel bike => I have a bike that’s about time in the saddle, enjoyment and feel. I use heart rate to keep my effort in check.
Turn off auto splits => I found they were nudging my speed up, and reducing my Green Zone enjoyment.
If the emotional stakes are increasing then remember.
Measuring doesn’t make us faster.
Work, followed by adaptation, makes us faster.
Make sure your data isn’t giving you a beat down.4
Enjoyment is an important part of sustaining work, and speeding adaptation.
We are always fooling ourselves in some way. Knowledge is always, and will always be, incomplete.
So much energy is wasted by our attraction to drama.
I’m back on most everything other than Facebook, which scores high as a drama generator.
It’s OK to turn off the gadgets. I’ve had outstanding elite training blocks where I only recorded time and estimated distance. You can figure out what’s going on from your benchmark sets.
Well said. The watch gizmo notifications and readouts are result of an algorithm. We know our own bodies well enough if we workout enough and honestly.